Six astounding facts about the Sardar Sarovar Dam

The Narmada is the fifth largest river in the Indian subcontinent, traversing 1,312 km through Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat to drain into the Arabian Sea at the Gulf of Cambay. The river has a basin area of 97,410 square km and flows between the Vindhya and Satpura mountain ranges. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is built on the Narmada near Rajpipla in the state of Gujarat. Here are six astounding facts about this massive multipurpose water resources project.

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a 1,210 m long concrete gravity dam with a proposed final height of 163 m above the deepest foundation level. At present, it stands at a height of 121.9 m.

It is world’s second largest dam in terms of volume of concrete used.

The river catchment area above the dam site is spread across 88,000 square km.

It has a spillway discharging capacity of 87,000 cumecs.

It has the longest canal network in the world and includes the Narmada Main Canal, around 2,500 km of branch canals, 5,500 km of distributaries, and other associated channels.

The 458.3km long, 1,133 cumecs capacity Narmada Main Canal in Gujarat is the largest irrigation lined canal in the world. It further extends by 74 km in Rajasthan, and has 38 off-taking branch canals being built in phases.